Rudy Giuliani, who is representing President Trump in the Russia investigation, is walking back on comments in which he said that Trump “might agree” to give more written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Do you expect that he’s going to have to answer more questions in writing?” Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton asked Giuliani on Thursday.
“I think I announced about 10 days ago ‘over my dead body’ and I’m not dead yet,” Giuliani said, referencing his comments on “Fox News Sunday” earlier this month.
“[President Trump’s] not answering any more questions from these people — they are outrageous activity … we did enough,” he added.
In a Dec. 16 interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, Giuliani dismissed the prospect of Trump sitting down for an in-person interview with the special counsel.
“Over my dead body, but, you know, I could be dead,” he said.
Two days later in an interview with Axios, the former New York mayor appeared to soften his stance.
Giuliani said Trump’s lawyers “might agree” to additional questions from Mueller’s team and that they might provide “a few more answers.”
“Or we might not,” he added after saying federal prosecutors had asked about possible follow-up questions when discussing the rules for written answers the president submitted last month.
Trump’s legal team in November announced that the president had submitted written answers to questions from Mueller related to Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election.
So far, Mueller’s team has indicted or reached plea deals with three companies and 33 people, including onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump’s former longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
There is no clear end in sight for the Mueller probe, though many have speculated that the investigation is approaching its last stages.
Giuliani said on Thursday he expects the Mueller probe to wrap up soon, saying “we definitely should be completely finalized.”
“The whole reason why it began: collusion — they’ve investigated that exhaustively,” he told Hill.TV.
—Tess Bonn
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